Keys to Securing a Sustainable Love Past Valentine’s Day

There’s much speculation around how valentine’s day came about, but it’s a day that bursts forth hearts, blooms flowers, and boasts affection as a way that many have adopted as “thee” day to share, show, and speak love. Twenty-four hours set aside to wine and dine. Though for some, flowers and a movie at home are just fine. Whatever way you tend to choose to spend this one day that so many look forward to, or that some dread due to disappointment, this day can be the beginning for many, but I pray not the end for most by practicing sustainable love.

In today’s day and age we are so caught up, in our certain responsibility as those who hold dominion over the earth, on trying to save a world that’s dying, by introducing sustainable design, sustainable living, sustainable agriculture. To take a brief look at how Biblical Hebrew defines sustain, it’s; “to hold; to seize; to provide; to bear; endure; contain; feed; abide; understand (comprehend); guide”. Considering this, in all we attempt to sustain, how often do most actively attempt to sustain love; to sustain love during the ebbs that interrupt the flow that so easily comes when the tide of love is high? Just imagine if not just for a few hours on one day, but a few days out of every week, you can feel special with whomever you deem special to you without a special day! Believe, it is that which you can have by being intentional to…

Design Lasting Love
Per Ecolife Dictionary, “Sustainable design is the intention to reduce or completely eliminate negative environmental impacts through thoughtful designs.” Many, in their heart of hearts believe love hurts. But by definition and Divine design, it truly doesn’t. So, don’t be afraid to love. What hurts in love is not love itself, but instead it’s those things we bring into its environment that is “not” loving; all those things people know if it were to be said or done to them, they’d be hurt. It’s similar to the air we breathe today. A Huffington Post article, titled A ‘Smog Vacuum’ Will Clean China’s Air, Turning Pollution Into Jewelry, talks about a new design that allows people to be proactive and create something beautiful, as they remove toxins from the air. It states that “According to the World Health Organization, more than 80 percent of city residents worldwide are exposed to poor air quality levels.” But, the air itself is not what propagates the ailments many suffer, it’s what is put into it. Like love, air is good. Like love, air is harmless. Like love, air nourishes us. But it’s the pollutants that has been released in it that hurts us. And, like air, the environments of love need a designed plan to regain and sustain its healthiness, by infusing the good, removing the toxic, preventing re-contamination, and improving the plan as you move forward in your relationships. So, truly, love doesn’t hurt, but it does take willing responsibility to do some active work starting with the following steps!

Step 1: Use Eco-Friendly Elements
As you design the love you’d like to experience, it’s the non-toxic contributions that will sustain the health and well-being of you and your loved ones. Truth, trust, kindness, patience, peace, and humble hearts towards each other are non-toxic elements to work towards including into your relationship. Just think about the opposite of any of them, and what it would introduce into your environment of love instead.

Step 2: Clean Up What’s Messed Up
Eliminating wastes, those things that take valuable time away from spending time together. God wants you to work. He wants you to be productive for whatever He has assigned for you to do. Yet, He has also, called you to rest and fellowship with each other, not only with your acquaintances but first and foremost with those closest to you. Considering tendencies and behaviors that are empty, that are no longer useful or helpful, but instead let’s in stress and frustration, is another step in determining what wastes to begin working on throwing out.

Step 3: Continuously Refine the Design
No design is fully at it’s top notch performance straight off the drawing board. There’s always room for improvement; always room to bring forth something that maybe was always there but dormant and not yet put to use. There’s always a new thought or idea that can bring forth a spark. Enhancing and optimizing each other’s potential, and the possible expansion of your love between one another can reignite what made you fall in love in the first place. Additionally, it can help you to discover a few new things to do periodically that will keep the fire burning. Because like old stale corn bread, it’s all too unnecessarily tempting to throw out a relationship that has gone stale.

Daily Live Love
Sustainable living is the “practice” of reducing your demand on natural resources by making sure that you replace what you use to the best of your ability. ‭‭ Love requires you to pour into your beloved and for your beloved to pour back into you on a regular basis. According to 1 John 3:18 NIV, we are reminded, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” This means that everyday, not just one day, love needs to be confirmed for your loved ones. It’s great, not only to LOL (Laugh Out Loud) with each other, but as Joyce Meyers introduced in one of her tweets, to “Love Out Loud”, as well. Speak it loudly, speak it proudly, announce it publicly, announce it privately! For, additionally, in human make up a craving exists to “Love Others Literally”. By doing this you meet one of the demands in the definition of sustain which, in this context, is that you and your loved ones need “to understand (comprehend)” that the love between you is genuine, is consistent, is dependable, is withstanding, no matter what you may be going through.

Duplicate Lots of Love
The goal of sustainable agriculture is to meet society’s food and textile needs now without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Rarely is the effort to cultivate love considered past the present moment, not only into the latter days of the present lifetime, but into those of the next generation. More couples complain that s/he didn’t do what she or he did in the beginning, and so love anticipated for each next day looks boring. And, what many don’t realize is that it’s not only the couple who gets shortchanged, but also those who are watching. P. D. James once said, “What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give.” Love is in popular and great demand. It deserves to be in the spot light, exemplified as a guide, and fed to others to bring its existence into the future. Creating a “Lasso Of Love” around children, family, and friends, and thus replicates it as you give it, because true love is contagious!

Valentines Day has ended. Now what? Hopefully, you will decide to not let love go stale, nor throw it away, but recycle, refresh, and replicate it. Next to all the billions of dollars in tax money that’s spent to restore the earth, love don’t cost a thing… more than dedication, selflessness, and some effort. So that the love shared between you will remain true, because the nature of its authenticity, as 1 Corinthians 13:7,8 says, is “Love always perseveres. Love will never end…”!

Now… I’d love to see your thoughts! Please comment below!

What are some improvements you hope to see in relationships, whether a marriage, parent/child, sibling to sibling, etc.?

When do you think are some good moments in daily living to show more patience to a loved one? And, what specifically would you suggest doing?

Describe your vision of peace in a relationship without suppressing and ignoring a valid problem.